Garamendi Keeps Looking For California’s Brass Ring

Democratic Lt. Gov. John Garamendi didn’t beat around the bush Thursday when he talked about a 2010 run for governor. There was none of the “exploratory committee” wink and a nod that allows many candidates (Republican Tom Campbell and Democrat Gavin Newsom, for example) to start raising money and running hard for office while still pretending that they’re not really in the race.

No, the man from Mokelumne Hill jumped in with both feet, passing up an easy re-election campaign for one more try at the brass ring of California politics.

“I’ve made no secret of my interest in being governor of the state of California,” Garamendi said during a chat at the state Democratic convention in San Jose last March and that’s not the half of it.

He was only 37 when he ran for governor in 1982 after two years in the Assembly and six in the state Senate, losing the primary to L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley. Twelve years later, he gave up his job as state insurance commissioner to lose the 1994 nomination to state Treasurer Kathleen Brown, daughter to one governor and sister to another.

And let’s not even talk about his days-long campaign to replace Democratic Gov. Gray Davis (who beat Garamendi in the 1986 primary for state controller) in the 2003 recall. That bid mercifully ended when he came to his senses and decided to let Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante be the Democratic sacrifice to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Terminator.

Talking to reporters in a telephone news conference Thursday morning, Garamendi was more than willing to discuss his campaign strategy, which is pretty basic. With a horde of Democrats already looking to replace the termed-out Schwarzenegger, Garamendi figures he’ll be a familiar name on the ballot in a contest that won’t necessarily require a ton of votes to win.

He said he expected to raise around $10 million for his campaign, on top of the $278,973 in his “Garamendi 2010” campaign account at the end of June.

Those figures sound impressive, at least until you compare them to the war chests of other gubernatorial wannabes. Attorney General Jerry Brown has $1.7 million in his campaign account, state Treasurer Bill Lockyer has nearly $10 million set aside for future races and the $35 million former state Controller Steve Westly pumped into his unsuccessful 2006 primary run for governor only dented the fortune he made as a Silicon Valley businessman.

Garamendi wasted little time in getting his campaign up and running. His campaign web site was ready for business within hours of his 11 a.m. announcement on the steps of the Capitol and supporters received the first of what’s likely to be many fund-raising pitches almost before he finished speaking.

“I can’t do it alone and that’s why I’m asking for your support,” Garamendi wrote, asking for his backers to “send $10 for a ‘Garamendi campaign foundation brick.'”

Garamendi insists that, unlike other potential candidates, he’s proved over his long and varied career that he has what it takes to run the state. He grew up on a Calaveras County ranch, was a football hero at Cal, worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, earned a Harvard MBA, was the No. 2 person in President Clinton’s Interior Department, served as state Senate majority leader and has spent 10 years in statewide office. His positions on such hot-button issues as health care, the environment, consumer rights and education put him on the side of the angels as far as Democratic voters are concerned.

And yet when Garamendi sent out the press release announcing his campaign for governor, the only endorsement it included came from Castulo de la Rocha.

De la Rocha is the respected president of a non-profit community health clinic in Los Angeles and a nationally known health-care advocate. But he’s anything but a household name to most California voters and not the type of high-profile superstar supporter that front-runners in the race for governor are likely to show off when they open their campaigns.